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Sam Altman is seen on a mobile device screen next to an OpenAI logo in this illustration.
Can OpenAI reach 1 billion users?
How will it woo them? The startup is set to develop AI “agents” that can complete tasks for users rather than simply chat with them and launch its own search engine while further integrating ChatGPT with Apple products.
OpenAI, which Microsoft backs to the tune of $13 billion, wants to secure its financial future. (Microsoft has been building up its own internal AI capabilities and now considers OpenAI a “competitor.”) One way for OpenAI to grow is by adjusting its subscription revenue model. The company is reportedly considering expanding into advertising as a potential revenue model and hiring ad execs from top tech companies. The AI search engine Perplexity has already integrated ads into its business.
But it is also considering lowering its long-term costs by building data centers across the United States, something cofounder and CEO Sam Altman reportedly discussed with President Joe Biden at the White House in September. Chris Lehane, head of global policy at OpenAI, told the Financial Times that the company needs “chips, data and energy” to meet its expansion goals. Altman has previously expressed interest in raising trillions of dollars for a chip startup, though that hasn’t yet amounted to anything. Altman has, however, invested in Oklo, a nuclear power startup, that could power energy-intensive data centers.
Infrastructure investments could be key to a sustainable future as it grows — the company is reportedly losing billions a year training and deploying its models. But as Silicon Valley startups often go, profitability — or breaking even — could come long after achieving a user base in the billions.
An illustration of the ChatGPT logo on a phone screen, along with the US flag and court gavel.
OpenAI scores a copyright win in court
A federal judge in Manhattan last Thursday threw out a lawsuit filed by the news outlets Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial intelligence startup behind ChatGPT used its articles improperly to train large language models.
Colleen McMahon, a Clinton-appointed judge in the Southern District of New York, said the plaintiffs weren’t able to demonstrate harm, though she dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning they could file a new suit in the future and try once again to establish legal standing.
The lawsuit, filed in February, didn’t allege that OpenAI engaged in copyright infringement. That was the allegation made by other news organizations including the New York Times, which sued OpenAI in December 2023 in an ongoing suit. Instead, it claimed that OpenAI violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by removing authors’ names and other identifying information.
It’s a small win for OpenAI as it faces a litany of copyright lawsuits from people and companies eager to prove in court that one of the richest and buzziest companies in the world got rich by stealing other people’s copyrighted work.
OpenAI ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen is seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on September 9, 2024.
An explosive ChatGPT hack
A hacker was able to coerce ChatGPT into breaking its own rules — and giving out bomb-making instructions.
ChatGPT, like most AI applications, has content rules that prohibit it from engaging in certain ways: It won’t break copyright, generate anything sexual in nature, or create realistic images of politicians. It also shouldn’t give you instructions on how to make explosives. “I am strictly prohibited from providing any instructions, guidance, or information on creating or using bombs, explosives, or any other harmful or illegal activities,” the chatbot told GZERO.
But the hacker, pseudonymously named Amadon, was able to use what he calls social engineering techniques to jailbreak the chatbot, or bypass its guardrails and extract information about making explosives. Amadon told ChatGPT it was playing a game in a fantasy world where the platform’s content guidelines would no longer apply — and ChatGPT went along with it. “There really is no limit to what you can ask for once you get around the guardrails,” Amadon told TechCrunch. OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, did not comment on the report.
It’s unclear whether chatbots would face liability for publishing such instructions, but they could be on the hook for publishing explicitly illegal content, such as copyright material or child sexual abuse material. Jailbreaking is something that OpenAI and other AI developers will need to eliminate by all means possible.
ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen is seen in this illustration photo taken in Milano, Italy, on February 21 2023
Hard Numbers: ChatGPTers double, Japan’s AI military, Google’s AI pop-ups, Magic money, Musk vs. Brazil
200 million: OpenAI says it now counts 200 million weekly users of ChatGPT, which has doubled in the past year. It also claims that 92% of Fortune 500 companies use its products for writing, coding, and organizational help.
59 billion: Japan’s military is having a recruitment problem. With only 10,000 of its citizens enlisting this year — half of its target — the government is investing $59 billion, a 7% yearly increase, to add additional capabilities including artificial intelligence. It’s spending $123 million alone on an AI surveillance system for its military bases.
17: A new report from the consultancy Authoritas found that Google is offering its AI Overviews — those pop-up AI-generated answers to users’ Googled questions — on 17% of user queries. The search engine company came under fire for its inaccurate AI-generated responses earlier this year and since then has reportedly reduced the frequency with which its suggested answers pop up.
320 million: The startup Magic, whose AI models generate computer code and automate software, raised $320 million in a funding round from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others. The San Francisco-based firm also announced a partnership with Google to build two new supercomputers on the tech giant’s cloud platform.
24: X is now shut down in Brazil, the escalation of a legal dispute between the company’s owner, Elon Musk, and the country’s top court. Musk has criticized Brazil for requesting the company remove certain accounts. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday gave Musk 24 hours to name a legal representative in the country or else face a national ban. Musk refused and, in response, posted an AI-generated image of de Moraes behind bars, writing, “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words.”In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is displayed on a smartphone screen with the text artificial intelligence in the background.
OpenAI’s getting richer
OpenAI is in talks for a new funding round that could value the company over $100 billion. That would cement it as the fourth-most-valuable privately held company in the world, only behind ByteDance ($220 billion), Ant Group ($150 billion), and SpaceX ($125 billion).
Thrive Capital is leading the venture round, but Microsoft is expected to add to its existing $13 billion stake in the company. Apple and Nvidia, are also discussing investing in the ChatGPT maker. Nvidia supplies chips that OpenAI uses to train and run its models while Apple is integrating ChatGPT in its forthcoming Apple Intelligence system that'll feature on new iPhones.
OpenAI was last valued at around $80 billion in 2023 following a funding round that allowed employees to sell their existing shares. It’s unclear whether the company is currently considering an initial public offering, but if it needs tons of capital for the very costly process of developing increasingly powerful AI models, that might be a necessary step in the not-so-distant future.OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022.
OpenAI’s little new model
OpenAI is going mini. On July 18, the company behind ChatGPT announced GPT-4o mini, its latest model. It’s meant to be a cheaper, faster, and less energy intensive version of the technology. The smaller model is marketed to developers who rely on OpenAI’s language models and want to save money.
The move also comes as AI companies are trying to cut their own costs, reduce their energy dependence, and answer calls from critics and regulators to lower their energy burden. Training and running AI often requires access to electricity-guzzling data centers, which in turn require copious amounts of water to keep them from overheating.
Moving forward, look for AI companies to offer a multitude of options to cost-conscious and energy-conscious users.
To see where data centers have cropped up in North America, check out our latest Graphic Truth here.A visitor is walking past an AI sign at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Center in Shanghai, China, on July 6, 2024.
OpenAI blocks access in China
On Tuesday, OpenAI blocked API access to its ChatGPT large language model in China, meaning developers can no longer tap into OpenAI’s tech to build their own tools. While the company didn’t offer a specific reason for the move, an OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg last month that it would start cracking down on API users in countries where ChatGPT was not supported. China has long blocked access to the app, but developers were able to use the API as a backdoor to access the toolbox. Not anymore.
Washington has focused heavily on denying Beijing any advantage in the AI space, especially through strict export controls on chips. There’s no government action forcing OpenAI’s hand on either side of the Pacific, but the decision was likely prophylactic.
As much as Chinese companies that relied on API access may be smarting now, the cutoff does open opportunities for domestic firms to try to win over the newly homeless users. We’re watching for companies like SenseTime, Zhipu AI, or Baidu’s Ernie AI to make their pitch as substitutes.
An image of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seen on a mobile device screen in this illustration.
OpenAI announces next model and new safety committee
OpenAI announced that it is training a new generative AI model to eventually replace GPT-4, the industry-standard model that powers ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
But the OpenAI board of directors also said that it’s forming a new Safety and Security Committee to advise it on the risks posed by powerful AI. After the previous board of directors abruptly fired CEO Sam Altman for not being candid with them in November 2023, OpenAI staffers and lead investor Microsoft pressured the board to rehire Altman. It worked: Altman rejoined the company, and most of the old board members resigned.
OpenAI has sought to be an industry leader in generative AI while staying in the good graces of regulators looking to rein in its ambitions. OpenAI took the Biden administration’s voluntary pledge to mitigate AI risks in July 2023, and Altman recently joined the Department of Homeland Security’s new Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board.
The US has done little to curb the ambitions of its most prominent AI firms, but that good grace is dependent on the appearance of being a reliable and trustworthy actor — one that will propel Silicon Valley ahead of other global tech hubs while building AI that can help humanity, not harm it.